50 Years Ago: Rates and taxes

Rates and taxes are imposed to cover the cost of local and national government. The employing class — the possessors of property — in order to maintain their existence as a ruling class, must pay the various charges incurred by employing an army, navy and police force. The ever-growing body of officials they appoint; the numerous departments they have to run to make smooth the working of capitalist commerce; the interest on theirr “National” Debt heaped up by the cost of past wars: all these have to be paid, and the problem ever facing our masters is—which section of the propertied class is to provide the money?

The employing, or capitalist class, though face to face with the workers they are as one, are composed of many sections, differing in their day-to-day interests. Right through the history of taxation the spectacle has been seen of one section of the propertied class trying to shift ‘the burden of taxation’ on to another class, and the question in many minds is: Can they shift it on to the working class? We answer, No! The working class do not own property. They exist alone by selling their energy (their power to labour) to the employing class, the owners of the means of production.

The employers take the whole of the wealth produced by the working class, merely giving back to the workers on an average, enough to maintain them in a condition to go on producing wealth.

This portion which is given to the workers—when their masters find it profitable to employ them—is like the fuel put into the furnace of an engine’s boiler, or the food given to the horse. It is the indispensable material without which they cannot be kept working. Clearly, then, the expense of carrying on their Government must be borne by our masters alone.

(From the SOCIALIST STANDARD March 1912.)